War
by angelwhisperer
Summary: "Sometimes, we have to fight to maintain peace. Only those we are defending ever see it." Edward serves in his first war. Mustang and his team are left with the fallout.


Hello friends! Here's another FMA oneshot for your enjoyment. This is sort of AU, set after Ed joins the military but before Lab 5 and everything that comes after. Not a happy story, but it's mainly angst and Ed/Team bonding.

No slash. Rated for language.

Disclaimer: I do not own FMA or its characters. Nor do I own Flyleaf, whom the song belongs to.

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><p><em>"Blood in our hearts and blood on our hands.<em>

_We cry out. We're fighting. It's warfare. We're dying._

_Believing we're winning. It's ending, we're singing."_

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><p>Roy couldn't find his youngest subordinate at the honoring. It was meant to be a celebration of the victory at Drachma's front line, after two long years of war and bloodshed and sacrifice. His other subordinates attended, bound as they were by duty to their country and their superior. Fullmetal, loyal though he may be, was too young to be bound by any such code, and had apparently elected not to appear. Mustang would have laughed at the irony, that the only soldier who didn't attend was he who had won the battle. As it was, concern sat as a heavy stone on his heart.<p>

He glanced over his shoulder at his men, standing passive in the face of the drunk celebration. Hawkeye, Havoc, Breda, Fuery, and Fallman looked as bored as he was. Armstrong stood beside them, arms crossed as Ross and Brosh remained stiff at his side. They could not bring themselves to drop their guard, when dread was still thick like blood in their souls and they had been the ones to extract Major Elric from enemy frontlines, exhausted and dusty and gold eyes vacant. It haunted them like a lingering nightmare, poised at the forefront of their vision and refusing to relent its ice cold grip on their hearts.

Ed pulled away the moment they had reached base, disappeared amid tents and trucks and chaos, withdrawing into loneliness and silence. Mustang had been distracted by a gloating General that needed sucking up to, but he would not let the young Major slip between their fingers and out of sight again, so his grief can fester as it was prone to do.

"Where is Fullmetal?" he asked them, knowing the ruckus of the honoring would keep their conversation private.

His men looked at him, shaken from their daze. Breda glanced around "Isn't he here?"

"Does he look here?" Havoc drawled, twisting an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

Hawkeye shook her head, and her face was passive as her eyes narrowed in concern. "I haven't seen him since we returned."

"Maybe he's back at the quarters," Fuery suggested, looking nervous as he wrung his hands.

"He wasn't in the barracks," Brosh piped in. "We passed there before we came here."

Mustang looked back at the chaos without really seeing it, his brow furrowing. Alphonse was more skilled at tracking an elusive Edward Elric, having years of experience in doing so. But the younger brother was not present, and Mustang would not let that deter him from doing his job. Wordlessly, he pushed up from the wooden pole he was leaning on and turned to the tent flap. They followed him, like he knew they would. "Sir, where are you going?" Armstrong asked, bringing up the rear as they exited the smoky haze into clear evening air. The steady breeze was uncomfortably warm, smelling of ash and smoke and dusty earth.

"To find Fullmetal."

Dusk had nearly turned to twilight by the time he located his soldier. Shadows poured over the horizon, highlighted by the blood red light that twisted through darkness. Fullmetal sat on the ledge of a ditch, facing the sunset with his back turned to them. He had his fingers knotted in tousled golden hair and was hunched over, like the weight of the world bore down on his shoulders. The crimson light of the sky thrown down on him looked bloody.

Roy stopped a few feet behind. "Fullmetal."

Ed jumped, visibly startled, and the fact that Roy could sneak up on the kid alerted him instantly to the state of the alchemist's mind. He turned halfway around, running a tremoring hand through messy hair. "Colonel." His voice was soft, grating like crumbling boulders.

Mustang stepped toward him slowly, like one might approach a wounded animal ready to bolt. "You weren't at the honoring," he spoke simply, cautiously.

Ed shrugged. "I…" The words died and he turned away again, obviously disinclined to face them. Hiding, like he always did, when he was afraid to show weakness.

Roy breathed deeply (and no, he was not nervous about talking to a thirteen year old) and gently took a seat beside Ed. He made no indication that he had even seen the Colonel approach. The silence suffocated, wrapping around them like an oppressive hand as monstrous shadows shifted along the war-ravaged land. An unguarded soul could lose itself to the quiet and death that battle pours out across the earth, like the seven bowls of God's fury.

Ed spoke. "I…don't understand."

The words were soft, childlike, and took Mustang by surprise. He stifled his shock as the others shifted behind him, because Ed would shut down tight and withdraw into the agony of his own mind. Guilt and loneliness were eating the boy up inside, and he needed an outlet before the suppressed emotions imploded and destroyed him from the inside out. Leaning forward on his elbows, Roy replied, "What don't you understand?"

Ed studied the ground. "Why are they celebrating?"

Mustang watched Ed carefully as he answered. "We defeated the enemy. Why shouldn't they?"

Ed shook his head, his golden locks swaying like the branches of a mourning willow. "Can it really be called a victory?" he asked softly. "Whether we triumphed over them or not, we overlook the consequences. Can we only find conciliation in death?"

Roy sat quiet, mulled the words over in his head. He danced on a dangerous line, and one wrong word could send the boy reeling over the edge and into the abyss. Mustang had grown to accept war, enforce apathy and determination to shield himself from its horrors. Edward was not like him, though. He had never witnessed war, and it was a grisly thing to ponder in the dead of night. Mustang was quiet for some time before he found the words to answer.

"It seems that way when you first look at it. It's hard to keep an open mind."

Fullmetal's head snapped around to face him. "An open mind?" he retorted violently, golden eyes flaring with something a little deeper than wrath. "We're in the middle of fucking war! There's nothing open about it!" Mustang watched his subordinate with carefully suppressed irritation, feeling as though he was speaking to a child.

A child. The thought gave him pause.

His irritation deflated as quickly as it had come, replaced by a heavy heart. Edward was young, so young, and acted so much like an adult, they mistook him for one on many occasions. But he was child in essence and Roy couldn't afford to overlook it anymore. He had, far too many times. This was war and the key to Amestria's victory had been a thirteen year old child. A soldier.

A weapon.

The thought sickened him.

Ed watched the ground again, shoulders hunched as his sudden anger was replaced by misery. He ran mismatched hands through wild gold hair. "Those were people, Colonel. Just people. They probably had lives and families to go back to." His voice broke, more obvious than he would have liked.

Mustang kept his eyes on the horizon so Ed wouldn't see the Colonel watching him. "War is hard to cope with, especially when you're the one doing the fighting. It's difficult to see the benefit now. Death is cruel, but sometimes…it's necessary."

"Necessary?" Fullmetal looked up at him. Golden eyes were wide and desperate, pleading for answers, condolence, forgiveness. "How can death be necessary? Nothing good ever comes out of it. Ever."

Roy's obsidian eyes softened. "Now, it seems that way, while we're watching the battles take place. But years from now, you'll see it. When our country is still standing, our loved ones are still alive, because we fought this war, you'll understand." Roy sighed. "We have been doing this much longer than you. If it were up to me, you wouldn't have come with us. But it's not up to me."

_Liar_, the wind whispered in his ear, because it was his fault and he knew it. He had gone in search of promotion and recruited a twelve year old child into the military. Into pain and dread and agony and blood. He was too young, _a baby_, and hadn't known anything beyond a selfless desire to save the only family he had left. Ed was better than them, better than the whole damn country, and Amestria will never know because all they see is a soldier. A dog.

Roy Mustang was a hypocrite, and he hated himself for it. But Ed didn't need that now.

"Sometimes, we have to fight to maintain peace. Only those we are defending ever see it."

Edward put his head in his hands, shadowing the grief on his face. "But I killed them, Colonel," he whispered and his voice was broken, shattered like a mirror into pieces. "I killed them all."

He started trembling, shoulders shaking violently. The world seemed to tilt on its side as Roy realized that Fullmetal was crying. The fearless, infallible hero of the people was weeping alone like a child, because he was. It disturbed Roy all the more that Ed didn't expect anyone to love him, to care, to take his broken pieces and put them back together again with warm hands and gentle hearts.

Hawkeye stepped forward finally and surprised them. Calmly, tenderly, she sat down on his other side and wrapped him up in long, soft arms, pulling him close. Audible gasps were heard behind them. Riza Hawkeye could be called many things, but maternal was not among them. She held steady guns in calloused hands and shied away from contact, because she needed to be strong for the ones she can't afford to lose. But she was not cruel, and loved the boy like family, so she sat steady and held him like for all the world he would disappear if she didn't.

Ed resisted at first, tense and expecting to be shoved away. He looked up at her, gold eyes doubting, and she met them with steady, confident burgundy. He needed this, needed to trust the ones that love him, tension left his body all at once. He surrendered, for the first time since the rebound, and buried his face in her shoulder. Soul-shredding grief could be seen in the way his body shook, how desperate his fingers clutched at her blue coat, the absolute abandon of his pride.

It startled Roy, but only for an instant. This is what they had been looking for, after all. He carried such a heavy burden, an Atlas with the earth on his shoulders, that this breakdown was inevitable. He needed to fall.

_You have done enough._

So they stood, on the brink of destruction, looking out on a world ravaged by war, with a child soldier looking to them for answers that they don't have.

Roy rose suddenly, knelt in front of the kid. Gently, he unwound Ed's fingers from Riza's jacket, but the hands stayed tense in his calloused grasp. "Fullmetal." Ed visibly flinched, but Mustang refused to relent. "Edward, look at me."

A moment of hesitation, then heart-wrenching golden eyes met obsidian coals. "Listen to me, now. I understand. I know it's hard. You feel worthless, like you don't deserve to live." Anguish crept into Ed's eyes again and they drifted toward the ground, but Roy gently lifted his chin with a white-gloved finger. "But you have to understand that it's not your fault." He saw the protest on Ed's lips and shook his head. "No, it's not. You killed those people because you had to, because if you didn't, it would be your friends and family who suffer instead. With victory comes sacrifice. No one knows this better than you." Untold memories flashed across Ed's eyes, and Roy's heart twisted. "Don't let this destroy you, Edward. You don't have to deal with it alone."

He visibly struggled with this, fingers twisting and clenching nervously in Mustang's grasp. "But…I am alone."

Roy shook his head again. "No. No you're not."

He looked up, startled.

"You have us," Riza answered, stroking his back. "It's okay to lean on other people."

"No one should have to deal with this crap alone, chief," Jean added, stalking over to them and standing at Mustang's back. "We're not going anywhere anytime soon."

Fullmetal was quiet for a long time, studying the crimson sun without really seeing it. They sat patiently, watched him, let their words sink in.

"I'm sorry," he finally whispered, not meeting their eyes.

Jean shook his head. "Nothing to be sorry for."

The team stood in comfortable silence as twilight cast its velvet cloak across the sky, crusted with diamonds that shimmered like tears. Night stretched thick black hands over the dusty earth, taking a firm hold and crushing it in a fist like God. _Have mercy_, Roy wanted to pray, show faith in a Creator he no longer believed in. _I'm sorry_, Roy wanted to say, but didn't because the child had no strength left for pain and God had no forgiveness left to give. They stood on the brink of destruction, of a war that wasn't over yet, with a soldier that was too young to understand what he was killing for. Twilight pours out its corruption upon their Amestrian countryside as the darkness settled like an angel from God and the earth gave up its dead.

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><p>Please review! I'm curious to see who got my Revelations references. I thought they were clever.<p> 


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